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MULTOS Consortium releases new specification

Posted on 10 November, 2015 in Category

MULTOS Consortium releases new specification revolutionising the approach to MULTOS personalisationEnhancing the MULTOS platform to bring additional choice and flexibility to the personalisation bureau

London, UK – 10th November 2015 – The MULTOS Consortium, a group of leading companies involved in the promotion and development of the MULTOS standards, announced today an update to the MULTOS specifications that include enhancements to the card lifecycle management functions that will further ease perso bureau operations. MULTOS products are unique in the market, offering an enablement step that cryptographically locks the chip to the issuer of the card. Now, for the first time, the bureau can choose the method of where this cryptographic ‘lock’ is generated – either using the existing central MULTOS Key Management Authority (KMA), or integrating the process directly into the personalisation facility. With the new integrated enablement option, MULTOS devices are the only products on the market that can be turned from standard generic stock into locked and loaded devices in a single step.

The feature is included in the latest MULTOS specification and can now be supported by new MULTOS products.

Chris Torr, Technical Manager of the MULTOS Consortium says “This is a significant release to further enhance the MULTOS provisioning methods. The new MULTOS products supporting Real-Time Enablement now allow customers to choose which method to invoke during personalisation, and the OS will automatically configure itself without the need for any special commands. This mean that products can be introduced seamlessly into existing personalisation environments and customers can take advantage of the advanced options to streamline their processes. We are already seeing the first products from Multos International that offer these new features entering the market.”

Richard Cusson, General Manager of Multos International, commented “This is great news for personalisation bureaus. Our latest product releases MULTOS MC4 and ML4 P17 series support the new personalisation features. We have also introduced our next generation key management utility – called C3 – that can be integrated into the personalisation system to bring real-time enablement inside the bureau. This really does bring card personalisation to a new level, and we are excited to be already working with several customers to bring those benefits to the market.”

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About MULTOS:
MULTOS is the most robust, industry-backed high security smart card platform, delivering simplicity and innovation to the world’s leading bank and government issuers. With an issued card base of over 8 million devices across more than 45 countries, hundreds of issuers, including national governments, banks, corporate enterprises and transit authorities have taken advantage of the high security, multi application platform for their deployment programmes. A wide range of applications including, Chip & PIN payment, contactless payment, authentication, digital identity, biometrics, loyalty and mass-transit ticketing may implemented, and co-reside, using a MULTOS powered chip.